We are aiming to soon reach Rs 1000 cr sales mark: Peyush Bansal

In conversation with Peyush Bansal, Founder & CEO, Lenskart, who spoke about the brand's future plans and strategies.

Sunil Pol

Country’s leading eyewear retailer Lenskart is eyeing to open 700 stores through franchising across tier I and II cities by 2020 along increasing its existing count of stores from 400 to 500 by the end of current fiscal. It is also aiming to soon reach Rs 1000 cr sales mark while attaining 15% YOY growth. The company is constantly focusing on improving the consumer experience along with ensuring high-quality product availability for the consumers in the best possible way and in time.Thus talking about the company’s future strategies Peyush Bansal, Founder & CEO, Lenskart spoke to Indianretailer.com.

How are you keeping yourself ahead of the curve amid surging investments, changing technologies, constant disruption and evolving consumer? Technology is super critical in today’s environment to get anything done, to have every small thing right and to scale up, technology plays a large role. In terms of investment, I think I will continue. We are now profitable business and we are not looking at any funding at this stage. I don’t think that only large companies will get funded as they need more money than the smaller companies. There are many smaller companies which are getting plenty of opportunities to prove. In terms of ratio only 1 out of 10 smaller companies gets successful and with large companies, it is 1 out of 2, that’s the only difference.

What are the things that set you apart from others? The product is absolutely everything for us. From lengths to frame to the temple of the frame to style it is everything for us. In terms of services we are trying to deliver the omnichannel experience, giving 14 days return policy and always vying to find better ways to serve consumer better.

What kind of disruption are you planning to introduce in the lenses space? We have just started manufacturing lenses, so we will get to learn more about it. Our biggest disruption so far has been the blue mobile protection lenses which have been highly affordable and it constitutes to almost 60 -70 percent of our business now. And we will continue to look for newer lenses. If we have manufacturing control we can innovate a lot more.

What would be your offline stores expansion plan? We are expanding continuously. Presently we have 400 stores pan India and we will add another 100 stores this fiscal. Overall we are planning to have 700 stores, mainly through franchising across tier I and II cities by 2020. We are a still very young and fast growing company, our CAGR growth is very high and I think if we can continue to grow 15% percent YOY growth we will be happy.

What is your sales target for the financial year 2018-19? We are trying to be Rs 1000cr company and we are getting closer to it.

What could be the key steps to reach to the mark of Rs 1000cr? We just want to stick to our basics, getting our product right, ensuring high quality product availed to the consumers in the best possible way and in time, and delivering good experience to the customers. And this is how we are going to attain inorganic growth. I think we have reached a scale where these key things will matter most than anything else.

Are you seeking fund for your future activities? We are bootstrap company and not planning to raise funds. We have become a profitable entity.